Canada buffaloberry
Shepherdia canadensis
Also called Soapberry, Soopolallie
We do not have a Blackfoot or Cree name for this one yet. Tell us the name and we will add it, with your word on where it comes from.
A bitter red berry full of natural soap that whips into a foam when beaten. Sharp, distinctive, and used in small amounts rather than eaten by the handful.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- The saponins that make this berry foam cause stomach upset and diarrhoea in quantity. Small amounts only.
- Bears feed heavily on this shrub. Make noise, watch what is around you, and be willing to leave a patch to them.
What it is confused with
Deadly look-alikeBaneberry Actaea rubra
Baneberry is a soft herb, not a woody shrub, with large divided toothed leaves and a tight cluster of glossy red or white berries held up on a single stalk above the leaves. Its berries are poisonous. Buffaloberry is woody, its leaves are simple ovals with rusty scales beneath, and its berries sit tight against the twigs.
Easily confusedSilver buffaloberry Shepherdia argentea
A larger thorny shrub with silvery leaves on both sides and sweeter fruit. Also used.
How to know it
- Leaves
- Opposite pairs, oval, dark green above and silvery beneath with distinctive rusty-brown scales scattered on the underside.
- Underside
- Turn a leaf over. The rusty speckling on a silvery background is the sure identification.
- Berries
- Translucent red or amber, soft, clustered close along the twigs.
- Taste
- Bitter and soapy. Nobody mistakes it for a saskatoon twice.
The country it grows in
- Aspen parkland
- Mountain forest
- Foothills and shrubland
- Coulee slopes
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Berries July to September
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Food and drink
Beaten with water into a foam, which is where the name soapberry comes from. The foam is a well-known treat across western Canada.
How it is prepared
- Food
Whipped with a little water into a foam, sometimes sweetened. Eaten in small amounts.
The natural soaps that make it foam will upset your stomach if you eat a lot of it.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.